


this is a song (about somebody else)

by savage_starlight



Series: after many miles [3]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Blood, Clayson, Gratuitous abuse of musical timelines, Injury, Literal Sleeping Together, M/M, Mutual Pining, Sharing a Bed, Singing, UnDeadwood Mini-series (Critical Role), Western Gothic, backstory speculation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-07
Updated: 2019-11-07
Packaged: 2021-01-24 19:13:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21343297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/savage_starlight/pseuds/savage_starlight
Summary: An injury, some bad memories, a guitar, and a song."He doesn't see it when the world drops out from beneath his feet. He just feels the fall."
Relationships: Reverend Matthew Mason/Clayton Sharpe
Series: after many miles [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1535678
Comments: 29
Kudos: 146





	this is a song (about somebody else)

**Author's Note:**

> Hello again!! Unfortunately for the sanity of all involved parties, I've not yet run out of ideas for writing in this fandom and show no signs of stopping any time soon. The Undeadwood discord is filled with enablers in the best of ways, and it's a great time.
> 
> This story started from the prompt 'Matthew discovering Clayton can sing/play guitar', and though that wound up being a relatively minor detail it did still make it into the story. This story also is a gift fic for the ever-lovely Holly, who was kind enough to provide me with this prompt and patient enough to tolerate it being four days late for her birthday. I say again: y'all are wonderful people.
> 
> The song title this time around comes from "Looking Too Closely", as written and performed by Fink.
> 
> Thank you again to everybody who keeps reading and commenting and supporting all these stories I'm writing. I'm honestly blown away by the amount of support, and I'm so grateful for every ounce of it. Y'all are the best, and I'll see you again real soon. <3

There’s a gun in his hand.

He doesn’t know what happened, only that it wasn’t supposed to. Matthew watches the man across the room crumple to the ground with a chunk of his face missing, and he looks at the hand holding the gun, and he cannot process the connection between the two.

Blood drips down the window, languid and slow. The sun hits the stained glass and paints the floor red and holy as a church. It’s been a long time since he’s seen something like that.

The world trembles. So does he.

He slumps against the wall. There’s blood on his clothes, on his hands, on the floor.

He doesn’t see it when the world drops out from beneath his feet. He just feels the fall.

* * *

Someone is touching his face, warm hands pressed against both cheeks in the dark. He knows those hands. He’d know them anywhere.

“Mason?”

That’s strange. He doesn’t usually talk to himself.

“Mason.”

The voice is wrong. It doesn’t belong with those hands.

“Matt.”

He should be here, but he isn’t. It’s been a long time since he was.

“Matthew, please.”

He opens his eyes. It’s a long moment before he adjusts to the shadows that have set in since he closed them. If there’s a source behind the taste of ash in his mouth, he can’t see it. All he sees is Clayton sitting before him, eyes wide with some expression he’s too fucking dazed to dissect carved into his face. Matthew blinks, then frowns. “Clayton?”

The gunslinger exhales, short and sharp. “Thank fucking Christ. Hold on,” he says, and then he grabs at Matthew’s right thigh and suddenly there’s a burning pain shooting all the way down to his toes. He tries to pull away but Clayton only holds on tighter, and Matthew clenches his teeth against a gasp of pain that sounds entirely too loud in this claustrophobic nightmare of a place.

He’s been stabbed. He remembers that now. He’s been stabbed and he’s sitting in a pool of blood that is supposed to be inside of him and the world feels suddenly untethered, like he’s floating away from it. He breathes through his mouth but it doesn’t help, doesn’t stop the reek of ash and iron and rot from poisoning the air in his lungs and the world spins like a fucking top and-

“Matthew.” He closes his eyes and whimpers and Clayton’s hands tighten around his leg in some strange cross between a tether and a warning. “Come on, Matty. Stay here.”

The old name hits like a punch to the stomach. It’s been a long time. Matthew breathes out slowly and tries his damnedest to remember where he is. He pats at his pocket until he finds his rosary and holds it tight enough to leave a mark. “Andrews still dead?”

“As a doornail,” Clayton confirms. “Stretch your left leg out too far and you’ll probably end up kickin’ him. Some of him.”

“I ought to do last rites,” Matthew says, and even though it hurts like fuck he starts to laugh because he can feel panic bubbling in his veins and it’s probably not appropriate but he can’t help that it’s funny to think about being a preacher and a killer at the same time. It’s like a one stop shop where anyone who asks can make a person into a body and bury them the same night.

He needs a fucking drink. He needs it like he needs air, but he knows, deep down, that if he starts now he won’t stop. Clayton’s hands are still clasped tight around his thigh. They’re both covered in blood, and it feels a bit ridiculous but there is something inherently sickening about seeing Clayton’s normally white shirt drenched such a deep red.

Matthew pushes at his hands. “Let go.”

“Fuck off.”

“Clayton.”

“No. You wanna bleed out on the floor of some jackass’s house, do it when you’re alone.”

“I’m not trying to bleed out,” he snaps. Clayton stiffens and Matthew catches himself, then tries again softer. “I’m gonna keep pressure. I need you to look around for some needle and thread so we can stitch this shut.”

Clayton stares him down for a long second, then nods. “Get ready.” Matthew places his hands on top of Clayton’s and counts, and the moment Clayton’s hands slide away he clamps down as hard as he can over the gash in his thigh. The constant fiery pain flares sharply and he grits his teeth in an attempt to keep from gasping again.

He’s still bleeding steadily, he can feel that now. The blood soaks into his gloves and the leather is clinging to his skin within seconds and it’s restrictive and warm and sticky and he breathes out slow as he squeezes because he knows this feeling, knows the way it looks, he knows all of this all too well and-

Across the room a drawer slams shut hard enough to make Matthew jump. He looks over to see Clayton, every muscle sharp with a tension that clashes with the way the sun outlines him in soft gold as it sets. “You and I need to stop fuckin’ splitting up,” he mutters, yanking open another drawer. “For a man who’s supposed to be protected by God you’ve got the devil’s fuckin’ luck.”

Matthew laughs, breathy and shallow. “I don’t think he made a habit of being thrown from horses. Or shot. Or stabbed.”

“Maybe you oughta take lessons.”

“I’ll take that under advisement.”

“Fuckin’ finally.” Matthew thinks for a moment that Clayton is responding to him, but then he sees the small sewing kit clutched in the gunslinger’s hands. He grabs an oil lamp on his way across the room, and a minute later he’s crouched down beside Matthew again, the blood making a squelching noise beneath his knees.

The needle is dull but it glints in the light and Matthew’s stomach turns at the sight of it. “You got any whiskey on you?” he asks, voice strained.

Clayton glances up from where he’s threading the needle, a question in his eyes. “Just enough to clean you up. Won’t be pretty but it’ll get it done.”

“Of course.” Matthew closes his eyes and swallows hard against the memory of gangrene infected skin that felt too soft under his fingers. This won’t be like that. There’s not enough whiskey to get him drunk but there’s enough to keep him safe.

Warm, sticky hands slide against his. Clayton’s taken his gloves off and his fingers are warm against Matthew’s wrists where the ruined sleeves of his vestments have ridden up. “Easy. I’m almost ready. You’re gonna have to hold the sides together so I can sew, alright?” Matthew nods mutely. “Good. Now either get those pants off or open the leg up for me. I don’t wanna stitch ‘em on permanently.” There’s an efficiency to Clayton’s movements that suggests he’s done this a time or twenty, but if there’s context to be had Matthew doesn’t want it.

Pursing his lips, he loosens his grip on his leg and fumbles ineffectually at the fabric of his trousers. The blood on his gloves has already begun to stiffen enough to limit his movement and Matthew swears as he bites at the leather and yanks his hand free, spitting to the side to get the taste out of his mouth. Clayton’s giving him that look again, the one he can’t read, but he doesn’t acknowledge it, just pulls the other glove off and throws them both across the room before tucking his fingers under the torn edges of his pants and pulling.

Even as drenched as it is, the sound of ripping fabric seems to reverberate in the panicked quiet of the room. Matthew peels it back to reveal the blood-smeared skin around the jagged gash in his thigh, short and deep and somehow still bleeding. He’s not sure how long it’s been, because everything feels like forever right now but he thinks he should have passed out by now. In fact, he’s certain of it.

“You ready?” Matthew looks up to find Clayton staring him down, the needle now shining and clean in his right hand. Matthew nods, and Clayton purses his lip. “You’re gonna have to hold still. This is about to hurt.”

There is a familiar flash of silver and then there is pain like a fucking match has been shoved into his skin and it’s a good thing they’re so far away from anywhere close because the alcohol pours onto the open wound and Matthew screams, hard and ragged and longer than he can help. He thinks for a moment he’ll pass out for real, but then there’s a hand on his shoulder and the fingers are digging in and the voice is familiar, letting out a low and long string of comforts that feel meaningless in the face of how much it all fucking _hurts._

Matthew’s cheeks are wet. He notices that first, right before he picks up on Clayton’s hands pressed hard against his leg again. “Matthew, come on. I can’t hold this together and sew at the same time. You have to help.”

His hands are shaking. It’s been so long since he’s felt like this. He ties himself to Clayton’s voice and clings onto it as he nods and presses both sides of the wound together. “Just do it,” he manages through gritted teeth.

It’s a long time before he stops feeling the familiar pierce and pull of a needle through his skin. All told there’s thirteen stitches, each of them neat and even and dark. The cut doesn’t look so bad like this, but Matthew’s head is still swimming from the blood loss and all the memories he didn’t ask for, all the flashbacks he’s been trying so hard to burn. Clayton tears off the thread and then holds out his flask. “Here. Whatever’s left is yours.”

The selfless preacher Matthew’s been trying so hard to become tells him he should decline, or at least save some for Clayton. He ignores it easily and drinks all that’s left with two hearty swallows and wishes there was more. “My thanks,” he says, the words half a gasp. He runs his fingers over the rosary beads and looks to the window. They’ve lost the light almost completely now, and come morning the others will be expecting them back in Deadwood. It’s a half day’s ride, longer if they’re going slower on account of his leg. “We should be going.”

“The hell we should,” Clayton says, standing. “Stay put. I’m gonna go feed the vultures.”

“What?”

“We’re sleepin’ here tonight. Last thing you need is to be out in the cold like this.”

“But the others-“

“Are gonna understand,” Clayton interrupts. He fixes Matthew with a stern look. “We go back like this, Miriam’s gonna kill us both, then Arabella will find a way to bring us back so she can do it again. I’ll pass on that.”

“But-“

“You can’t ride like this, and I can’t hold you up and lead both our horses at once. Now stop bein’ stubborn. Fucker who lived here stabbed you. Least he owes us is a roof for the night.”

_He’s already given us his life,_ Matthew wants to say, but he knows it will get him nowhere so he shuts up and watches Clayton shoulder what’s left of Nathan Andrews and head out the door, leaving him alone in a dead man’s house.

Alone is a terrible place to be. Mindlessly, he brings up the rosary still gripped tight in one hand and traces his fingers along the bumps of the cross, the familiar figure bound to it. “You still there?” he murmurs, words soft in the silence.

Matthew closes his eyes.

* * *

_He hates this place._

_He hated the place before this too, and the one before that. He hates just about everywhere he’s been in this Christforsaken war, but he thinks everybody does. There’s a special kind of hell that exists in the things they’ve seen, the sort that follows them around. _

_He’s used to moving around, but he’s been stuck here for weeks now, five miles away from the fighting while his unit makes periodic runs between the frontlines and the field hospital and the shitty encampment where Major Howard Cooper continues to uphold the same legacy of incompetence he always has. There’s rocks that could probably lead an army better, Matthew thinks, but nobody’s asked him and he doubts anyone will._

_The only good thing in this entire fucking war is standing twenty feet away, leaning against a tree with his back to the carnage. Thomas hears him approaching, because of course he does, and he turns around to greet him with tired eyes and a smile like the sun. “I’ll be damned,” he says, bridging the distance between them._

_“I very much doubt that,” Matthew replies, wrapping Thomas up in a hug he knows to be too tight. The other man smells like blood and smoke and horses and home, and it’s a scent he wants to bury himself in forever._

_Thomas pulls away after a long moment, green eyes searching across Matthew’s face. “You’re still here then?”_

_The mud is clogging his nose and the smoke burns his eyes but the smile that crosses Matthew’s face is every bit a real one. “Why, where else would I be?”_

* * *

Somebody’s singing.

The voice that pulls Matthew from his sleep is rough and quiet, barely more than a hum to go along with a few plucking strings. He can’t quite make out the words, and he doesn’t honestly even know the tune but it’s pleasant despite being foreign so he lays still and he listens close, somewhere between drifting off and lucidity. It’s cold as fuck in this house, but it feels warmer for the company.

Clayton plays for a long time, though he never gets too much louder than a low murmur when he sings. He’s got a good voice, Matthew notes absently, deep as a grave but much warmer even for all its roughness. Every now and then he hears a tune that he swears he knows from the war, but he’s only ever heard those songs in Northern accents and he can’t think of why a man from Texas would know them and the song changes before he can think to ask.

The next one is familiar. Clayton doesn’t sing, but Matthew hears the words nonetheless, and he joins in softly when the chorus comes along.

The music cuts off sharply. Matthew opens his eyes and looks across the room to see Clayton outlined in the dim light of the gas lamps, hands pressed against the guitar strings with his eyes bright in the night. “How long you been awake?” he asks, a bit too sharp.

Matthew sits up carefully, wincing as he does. “Only a couple songs. I didn’t know you played.”

“I don’t.” Matthew raises an eyebrow and Clayton scowls. “Much_._” He sets the guitar down and crosses the room to Matthew’s side. “How you feelin’?”

“Better,” Matthew says, mostly truthful. A realisation occurs to him and he blinks. “I don’t remember getting on this bed. I must have been more out of it than I recall.”

“You’re also heavier than you look,” Clayton mutters.

Matthew’s eyebrows furrow. “You brought me over here?”

“You didn’t float.” Clayton meets Matthew’s gaze with a look that’s half challenging, half defensive, as if daring him to question the kindness. It’s a baffling reaction, but- well. Clayton tends to be a bit of a baffling person.

Matthew nods instead of asking. “Thank you. That was mighty kind.”

“Don’t mention it.” Clayton turns away, and before Matthew can think twice about it he grabs his wrist as if to hold him in place. Clayton stiffens, and Matthew realises a moment too slow that neither of them are wearing their gloves and the gunslinger’s skin is hot against his. He lets go with an apology already tripping off his tongue, but Clayton beats him to a reply. “You’re fuckin’ freezing.”

Matthew blinks. “I’m…sorry?”

Clayton rolls his eyes and seems to contemplate for a moment. Then he sighs. “Scoot.”

“What?”

“_Scoot._”

Still confused, Matthew does as he’s told. As soon as there’s room, Clayton sits on the edge of the bed and removes both guns from their holsters, tucks one under the pillow and leaves the other on the nightstand. Matthew watches him in confusion, only starting to process what’s happening when Clayton swings his legs up onto the bed, then freezes in place like he doesn’t quite know what to do with himself now that he’s gotten this far. The bed isn’t big, certainly not when one of the people in it is as large as Matthew is. There won’t be much room, no matter how they swing it.

Matthew inches over further and lays down on his side. “It’ll hold us, Clay. Come on.” He stretches out an arm in invitation, and for a long moment Clayton stares at the offending appendage like it’s a snake about to bite him. Then he seems to brace himself, sits his hat on the side table over his gun, and lays down beside Matthew.

The only light in the room comes from the moon through the window. It cast shadows even in the darkness, highlights the valleys of the worry lines around Clayton’s mouth. This close, Matthew can see there’s a lot of them, enough to match up smoothly with all the silent dread he sees sometimes in Clayton’s eyes. For a moment they stare in silence, and then Matthew laughs, a lightheaded thing he blames almost entirely on his earlier blood loss. “I must confess, I’ve not really done this before. Not in this sort of predicament, anyway.”

The lingering tension bleeds out of Clayton’s frame almost entirely. “Me neither,” he admits, and inches closer. “Consider it an experiment.” He slides an arm over Matthew’s frame, and it looks a little awkward but he’s warm, much warmer than any blanket, and the heat of his presence is grounding in the midst of it all.

Matthew breathes out slowly, all too mindful of how close they are. He leans his head forward until it almost touches Clayton’s and loops an arm of his own around the other man’s torso. “You always run this hot?” he murmurs, closing his eyes.

“Not without hellfire and assorted fevers bein’ involved, no,” Clayton replies, soft and dry. “Told you you’re fuckin’ freezing.”

Matthew snorts. “You kiss your mother with that mouth?”

“Way I see it, you got enough holiness for the both of us. I can curse all I fuckin’ like.” Clayton’s fingers tighten on his side. Matthew pretends not to notice. “Your God decides he gives enough of a shit to intervene, I’ll worry about beggin’ his pardon then.”

“What if He says no?” It’s meant to be a light-hearted comment, but Matthew feels Clayton stiffen beneath his hands.

For a long moment, there’s silence. No movement, no reply. Then Clayton laughs, real soft, and says, “Guess he’d be within his rights. I ain’t worried about it either way.”

There’s something heavier in that response, something that weighs a lot more than a few curse words. Matthew wants to unpack it, wants to open up Clayton wide and find out what makes him hide the way he does, what it would take to make him laugh without it sounding like thin and bitter coffee. But neither of them have the energy for that tonight, so instead Matthew just tightens his grip on Clayton, rests their foreheads together the rest of the way. “Good,” he says. “You don’t have anything to be worried about anyway.”

Clayton doesn’t respond, not for a long time. They lay there, pressed against each other in the quiet for what feels like an hour while Matthew’s body tries to regulate its own temperature, and though the silence is companionable there comes a point where he just can’t take it anymore. “You should play again sometime,” he says, quiet and soft, not even certain anymore if Clayton’s awake given the darkness surrounding them.

The response is immediate. “What?”

“Guitar. I couldn’t appreciate it all too well tonight, I’m afraid,” Matthew says. “I’d like to hear you play again some time, when I can pay more attention.”

“Don’t have a guitar.”

“Miriam could fine one.”

“I don’t want one.”

“Y’could sing then,” Matthew murmurs, voice slurring with sleep. “You got a nice voice.” He’s too comfortable to keep himself coherent at this hour, but he strikes up a song, old and familiar, the lyrics half instinct, half improvisation.

_Oh my darling, oh my darling,_

_Oh dear darling, boy of mine._

_Don’t be lost and gone forever_

_Oh my darling, Clay of mine._   
  


Beside him, Clayton breathes in sharply, sharp enough that Matthew thinks he’s made a mistake. But whatever it is will wait until morning. He’s already asleep.


End file.
